A brief look at the history of the Razzie Awards.
6 ‘n 90! Da Man reviews six films in ninety seconds.
02/08/2010
What a Character: Thomas Mitchell
With all the hoopla circulating around the platinum anniversary of what was arguably Hollywood’s greatest year, 1939, it’s worth remembering that this entire era was rich for more than just great movies. The decades on either side of 1939 were also the golden age for the screen’s great character actors. While the stars usually managed to squeeze out two, maybe three pictures a year, it often appeared that the character actors of this time were sprinting from one sound stage to the next. The good ones were very, very busy, and one of the greatest was Thomas Mitchell.
Born in 1892 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Mitchell, the oldest son of immigrant Irish parents, got his start on stage after briefly pursuing a career in journalism. For a while, he toured with a Shakespearean theater company headed by fellow character actor Charles Coburn. He then turned his sights to Broadway and appeared in more than twenty plays between 1916 and 1960, some of which he also wrote and/or directed.
02/08/2010
Classic Silent Comedy: Never Weaken
Harold Lloyd plays an odd kind of protagonist in the silent comedy Never Weaken. He starts out slightly duplicitous — even if it is for a good reason. His girlfriend works for a doctor, and since business has dropped off, unless a flood of new patients suddenly turns up, the doctor will be forced to let her go.
Fortunately, Lloyd has a plan. He hits the streets with an acrobatic friend who has agreed to fake a series of spectacular falls. After each fraudulent accident, Lloyd rushes forward and administers a series of bizarre chiropractic twists and stretches. When the acrobat springs up and walks away good as new, Lloyd immediately hands out cards with the doctor’s name and address on them to a receptive crowd that has gathered.
01/24/2010
Cinema Misfits Podcast, Episode 5: Interview With Razzie Awards Creator John Wilson, The Golden Globe Awards, and Reviews of The Giant Claw and Duel in the Sun
6 ‘n 90. Da Man reviews six films in ninety seconds. And this time, it’s a festival of “outs!”
The Giant Claw. It’s a blur! It’s a bird! It’s a puppet!
01/21/2010
The World’s Greatest Sinner
Plot:Frustrated insurance salesman Clarence Hilliard (played by Timothy Carey, who also wrote and directed) writes a Nietzche-esque pamphlet that claims, “all men are gods,” and then forms a rock ‘n roll band to help push his agenda. Not long after this, politics beckon, and Clarence ditches his guitar and makes a run for the presidency.
Review: Like any good exploitation film, The World’s Greatest Sinner is a mix of low budget technical compromises, lurching story lines, ham-fisted visual metaphors, and odd, unpredictable moments. During Clarence Hilliard’s first speech about the “Immortal Man,” he steps up onto a pile of what looks like sandbags to make his pitch. The camera then slowly tilts down to reveal him standing on bags of manure, a sign reading “4 for a dollar.” On stage with his rock ‘n roll band, Clarence doesn’t resemble a twitching, gyrating Elvis so much as he does a man having an epileptic fit. Then there’s the 50-state, stock-footage campaign for president, where vaguely familiar newsreel shots cheer on intercut snippets of Hillard exhorting his followers to become gods!
01/11/2010
Tom Hatten: Islander Guest
Tom Hatten is part of that rare breed, the local television celebrity. In these days of hundreds of cable channels, local television stations are little more than a place to park sitcom reruns and celebrity chat fests hosted by former supermodels and C-list television personalities. But it wasn’t always that way. There was a time…You kids all gather ’round Granny, now, as she spills a tale of days long gone by…when each local TV station could be identified by its own on-air staff.
For example, if you fired up the ol’ RCA Victor Color TV in your living room and saw Seymour, AKA Larry Vincent, you could bet you were watching “Fright Night” on KHJ-TV, channel 9. Ah, Seymour! All us kids in SoCal loved him. Side Note: I went to school with his lovely daughters, Diane and Valerie. One year, their father actually attended our Hallowe’en carnival at Lincoln Jr. High in Santa Monica. No paparazzi, just lots of pre-teen adoration to be found.
01/11/2010
David Carradine Remembered
The past year called away some screen notables, including Karl Malden, Van Johnson, Jennifer Jones, and Patrick Swazye, but two deaths struck me particularly hard. One was that of David Carradine, whom I knew, and the other Jacinto Molina, AKA Paul Naschy, the Spanish horror film star whom I hoped to meet. Both men made indelible impressions on me in the dull and dreary 70s, although their unique talents outlasted that decade.
01/11/2010
Cinema Misfits Podcast, Episode 4: Sherlock Holmes, Nine, and It’s Complicated
6 ‘n 90. Da Man reviews six films in ninety seconds.
Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes. Is his performance too edgy, or is it the perfect modern interpretation of a classic character?
01/11/2010
X-Files: I Want to Believe
An expanse of flat, snow-covered land bisected by a two lane highway. A car has veered off the road and plowed into the snow. The police inspect the area, looking for clues that might explain the accident.
This is either (a) a scene from early in Fargo or (b) toward the end of X-Files: I Want to believe. If you chose (a) and (b), you’re correct! The two films are remarkably similar, aside from small differences like Fargo is funny and has surprising, interesting characters, while X-Files: I Want to Believe is deadly serious, with a predictable take on an established cast. Both films also have lots of snow. And they feature female characters in law enforcement. And there’s lots of snow…in both films.
01/01/2010
Deserves a Look: “I Promise to Pay”
I Promise to Pay (Columbia, 1937) tells the story of a low-level office clerk, Eddie Lang (Chester Morris), who wants nothing more than to be able to finance a one-week vacation for his wife, Mary (Helen Mack) and their two children. To do so, he succumbs to the lure of easy money from an illegal loan shark (Leo Carrillo). When he is unable to pay back the loan immediately and is forced to contend with the 1,000 % yearly interest rate, he falls victim to a myriad of nasty thugs who threaten him and his family with bodily harm, kidnapping, and death.
Jim Rutherford
Nancy Louise Rutherford
Lou Aguilar
